


Mirror

by staticrocket



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, M/M, Nanase Haruka Centered, The others don't appear as much, merfolk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 16:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1906197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staticrocket/pseuds/staticrocket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something in the water.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> uhh. unedited au with a young, ambitious haru. i don't know what this is. don't look at me.

He sees a ripple in the water before anything. Next a splash, then some movement. Haruka doesn't know what's happening, but he thinks he's being stared at.

He's a little ways away from the rest of the kids. He'd wanted to see the ocean even closer, and had made it as much obvious by all his constant efforts in separating from the rest of the group. He wouldn't give up, and the teachers had realised as much. So they let him stand closer. With the elevated area they were standing on unlike any beach that can possibly drown him if he falls, they had one teacher holding onto him. Haruka had acquiesced, just so he'd have the chance of looking closer in the ocean.

Now there's something under the water, and he's pretty sure it's staring back at him. He tells the teacher as much.

"That's probably some of the big fish living there, Haru," she tells him. "Maybe they were curious about you."

He doesn't think so, but he doesn't say anything, already content with simply looking at the water. There's movement again, and he hears someone calling them from behind him. He doesn't move when the teacher pulls on his arm.

"Haru, we have to go. It's dangerous here with no handrails."

He wouldn't have moved if it weren't for the teacher promising him to let him move closer to the ocean in a safer spot where they were headed.

So he moves, and he swears the thing moving under the water is moving with him.

When they get to their destination, the teacher holding on to him had led him to an area quite similar to where he was before. Only this time there are handrails enough to even block someone as small as him. The teacher lets go of his hand.

"Haru," she tells him, sounding careful. "I need to be with the others for just a moment." She points towards the rest of the kids, and Haruka looks back enough to see Rei and Rin engaged in excited banter with Nagisa and Makoto right next to them. 

There's a splash in the water that makes him look back again.

He responds with a soft agreement, and the teacher smiles at him. "I'll still be looking over at you from over there, but please be very careful, okay? Just keep on holding onto the railing."

He nods, and the teacher holds his hand to guide him into holding the metal bar before walking over to the rest. He hears Rin asking in his usual loud voice why he's not with the rest of them, but the teacher's voice was too soft to hear her answer.

It's a while later, but he sees a splash again. A huge blue tail fin, and Haruka eyes are radiating excitement. Was that what his grandmother called a mackerel?

Both his hands are holding on to the metal railing, and he tries to lean even closer. He's staring and staring and he doesn't know how long he's been doing it until something rises up from the water.

The first thing he sees is black, like his hair.

It keeps on rising, until he sees eyes like his and a body just like his. 

The thing in the water's looking back at him, and he feels a sensation almost close to when he looks in a mirror. But he doesn't have scales scattered on his upper body, and his eyes, despite the similar colour, don't look like that. He sees their hands, the sides of their fingers all webbed and with sharp nails. He says the thing that first comes to mind.

"You're not mackerel."

He's seen as much of the fish to be sure.

Whoever's in the water just tilts their head, and Haruka's pretty sure he's heard of these things before. Mermaids, right? His grandmother had called them mermaids, anyway. That's unfair though, he thinks. How come he wasn't a mermaid?

He's thinking of saying something, when he sees movement from behind this mirror mermaid. He stares, waiting, and he sees something coming out of the water again.  
It's red, like Rin's hair.

Now that's really unfair.

The Rin mermaid rises up and immediately starts saying something Haruka can't understand. The mirror mermaid looks back at the former, responding with similar, incoherent speech. He doesn't understand what they're saying, but he sees a blue tail swish from underneath the mirror mermaid, and he feels that it's really unfair that some person that looks like him gets to be a mermaid while he isn't.

"How come you're a mermaid?" He asks, and the two in the water turn to him with the same confused look. Haruka realises, upon further inspection, that this mirror mermaid looks quite older than him.

"How?" He asks again, and the Rin mermaid makes a sound before beginning to glare at him. He looks wary, if Haruka thinks about it.

". . . a." The mirror mermaid voices out, mouth open enough for Haruka to see something resembling fangs. Haruka has no idea what he's saying.

There's another incoherent sound, before the mermaid points towards his companion. The Rin mermaid flails a bit, and Haruka can only guess what he's trying to say.

"You're a mermaid because of him?" He asks, but he doesn't get an answer. He hears voices from behind him, and the teacher accompanying him earlier calls him out to him. Unfortunately, it makes the two in the water flinch, and they dive back underneath in hurry.  
"Haru," the teacher calls out again. "Come on, be careful. We're going to eat lunch now with the rest."

There's no one there above the water anymore no matter how long Haruka tries to stare, and the last thing Haruka sees is movement from underneath. They're not going back up, most likely.  
Dismayed, he looks over at the teacher and nods.

Walking back towards the rest, he sees four people turning their heads towards him. Haruka looks over at each of their faces, and, when his eyes land on one specific person, he realises that the whole talk wasn't in vain, after all.

The teacher leads him back to the four of them, and she leaves him after that. He sees Makoto and Rin about to open their mouths to tell him something, but he doesn't give them the chance. He walks, all certain, and stops right in front of Rin, taking his hands immediately with his own.

Rin's surprised and is about to speak up until Haruka beats him to it.

"I want to be a mermaid," he tells Rin, sounding sure and hopeful. "And that means staying with you probably, so stay with me forever."

When the whole ordeal was brought up again, years later, Haruka's determined to hide his embarrassment over it while Rin, no matter what, turns completely red from hearing it.


End file.
